EDH0.5ISB
Hello everybody, now for something different. I wanted to share the way we play pauper EDH in my house. ISB stands for insignificant battles.
I think this variant addresses many of the complaints that regular EDH, and PDH have. First lets go over the rules, and then I'll explain what each of these rules do to address some of the problems that I at least find with EDH as a whole.
The Rules
Each deck consists of 50 cards plus 1 commander for a total 51 cards. The commander is either a common or uncommon creature. Players start with 25 life. There is no special commander damage. As per regular EDH rules, if the commander would ever change zones you can instead place it on the command zone. The commander also costs 2 more to cast every time you cast it from the command zone.
Your deck can only have cards of your commander's color identity and colorless cards. No duplicate cards are allowed in a deck except for basic lands.
More broadly, I think it would also be fine to allow a common or uncommon artifact or enchantment as the commander, but our group has not tested it. The flavor behind this idea being that people are worshipping that artifact or idea. From a perspective of fun, I think it would only add silliness to an already silly game. It would also be interesting to allow the commander to be an alternate victory condition card, such as Laboratory Maniac since their rarity does not necessarily correlate to their power level.
The Problems with Traditional EDH
The Monetary Cost
The biggest problem with EDH nowadays I see is the increasing cost of entry. Any decent competitive to semi-competitive list can and will run you anywhere from $50 to a several $100s from scratch, specially you choose more than one color. To be fair, Wizards of the Coast has been nice enough to provide playable decks for $35, but none of these stand up to a custom-made optimized deck.
Now, the cost is not a problem for groups that choose silliness over competitiveness (or have the cash in hand), but occasionally you really do want to do both.
To remedy this problem we have chosen to limit our card selection to commons where the price of the majority of staples is significantly lower. A lower power-level also allows players to play with what they have without giving up too much, and more importantly still have fun.
In this new format making a deck from scratch (including basic lands), should run no more than $20 with very very few exceptions. Given that you own a fair amount of the cards in your chosen deck already you can very easily build a deck under $10.
Deck Size
More obviously the advantage of a 50 card deck over a 100 card deck is that it's cheaper except in the case that you already own all the cards, however that's not really the point of this section.
The real issue with 100 card decks specially in a common environment is that it really waters down the power and feasibility of many decks. In regular EDH, red is the biggest victim, as the lack of tutors, solid ramp, and primarily aggro oriented nature of red cards make it difficult for these strategies to have a serious chance to succeed in a multiplayer format.
In pauper since there are few tutors, and unfortunately fewer reasonable playable cards in a given strategy, 100 card decks are impossible. 50 card decks allow for better well put together strategies. With 50 cards you really have to think about every slot. It concentrates your deck design and makes the deck construction more challenging and even fringe strategies find that they have just enough cards to play and do their gimmick without sacrificing the core of what makes them interesting. Fewer cards per deck also helps add variety to the decklists which don't automatically add every imaginable staple and instead choose cards that better suit their strategies.
As a bonus, if you like mill, 50 card decks also make this a real plausible winning strategy with commanders like Manic Scribe and Hedron Crab being both fun and playable strategies.
A concern that I should hear more, but I don't is that 100 card decks don't actually add anything to the format. There is nothing you can accomplish with 100 cards that you can't with 50. No strategy is plausible because of a larger deck.
Another consideration is that many (not all) sleeve packs are sold in packs of 80. Ultra pros with a design on the back, and KMC sleeves among others fall into this category. This means that if you prefer these brands you either have to buy 2 or switch to Dragonshields.
Less importantly, 100 card decks are also physically unwieldy and incredibly obnoxious to shuffle.
Really Long Games
Common only decks tend to be grindy, and a 40 life total also helps to delay the game. Lowering the life total from 40 to 25 has helped sped up games some.
Commander Damage
With a lower starting life total, commander damage is not really needed. To my understanding, commander was only added to help voltron decks shine, but with this change they don't need help any more. Players already have to keep track of many things, removing commander damage removes some of the tedium.
Banned Cards:
Why would a card be banned?
The main reason I would ban a card is because it creates an unfun gameplay experience for exactly one player, or because it shuts down the entire table single handedly.
Relic of Progenitus - Relic of Progenitus is banned because it is an incredible piece of graveyard hate that completely and repeatedly shut down many graveyard-based strategies. Soul's Attendant - Soul's Attendant is banned because lifegain strategies are incredibly powerful at common, and having access to potentially 3 of these sisters can be back breaking. It is really turns games of commander into archenemy.
Sample Decklists (numbers in the front refer to converted mana cost for spells and quantity for lands)
Mono White Tokens (also allows for Cloudgoat Ranger as commander)
After thinking about it a long time, I have decided to ban Soul’s Attendant from edh05isb.
Decks that have a large amount of life gain via extort or other means are extremely powerful. This is due to the fact that they can build a large cushion of life easily while damaging every opponent. The soul sisters can be extremely overpowering in this regard since you literally don’t have to do anything and easily heal over 5 life a turn. When combined with Cliffhaven Vampire in particular, it’s devastating. The game quickly becomes archenemy.
Without immediate spot removal, most deck begin to lose a large amount of life very quickly, as creatures are the primary victory conditions for most decks.
Taking one soul sister away is just a way of hurting the consistency of the deck while maintaining the core idea. With two soul sisters in the deck, there is 27% chance of drawing one of them in your opening hand. With one there is only 16%.
There are couple more cool bloodthirst creatures you can try like Gorehorn Minotaurs and Ghor-Clan Savage. I would also maybe thrown in a Wastes so you can more easily activate Maw of Kosilek.
Hello everybody, now for something different. I wanted to share the way we play pauper EDH in my house. ISB stands for insignificant battles.
I think this variant addresses many of the complaints that regular EDH, and PDH have. First lets go over the rules, and then I'll explain what each of these rules do to address some of the problems that I at least find with EDH as a whole.
The Rules
Each deck consists of 50 cards plus 1 commander for a total 51 cards. The commander is either a common or uncommon creature. Players start with 25 life. There is no special commander damage. As per regular EDH rules, if the commander would ever change zones you can instead place it on the command zone. The commander also costs 2 more to cast every time you cast it from the command zone.
Your deck can only have cards of your commander's color identity and colorless cards. No duplicate cards are allowed in a deck except for basic lands.
More broadly, I think it would also be fine to allow a common or uncommon artifact or enchantment as the commander, but our group has not tested it. The flavor behind this idea being that people are worshipping that artifact or idea. From a perspective of fun, I think it would only add silliness to an already silly game. It would also be interesting to allow the commander to be an alternate victory condition card, such as Laboratory Maniac since their rarity does not necessarily correlate to their power level.
The Problems with Traditional EDH
The Monetary Cost
The biggest problem with EDH nowadays I see is the increasing cost of entry. Any decent competitive to semi-competitive list can and will run you anywhere from $50 to a several $100s from scratch, specially you choose more than one color. To be fair, Wizards of the Coast has been nice enough to provide playable decks for $35, but none of these stand up to a custom-made optimized deck.
Now, the cost is not a problem for groups that choose silliness over competitiveness (or have the cash in hand), but occasionally you really do want to do both.
To remedy this problem we have chosen to limit our card selection to commons where the price of the majority of staples is significantly lower. A lower power-level also allows players to play with what they have without giving up too much, and more importantly still have fun.
In this new format making a deck from scratch (including basic lands), should run no more than $20 with very very few exceptions. Given that you own a fair amount of the cards in your chosen deck already you can very easily build a deck under $10.
Deck Size
More obviously the advantage of a 50 card deck over a 100 card deck is that it's cheaper except in the case that you already own all the cards, however that's not really the point of this section.
The real issue with 100 card decks specially in a common environment is that it really waters down the power and feasibility of many decks. In regular EDH, red is the biggest victim, as the lack of tutors, solid ramp, and primarily aggro oriented nature of red cards make it difficult for these strategies to have a serious chance to succeed in a multiplayer format.
In pauper since there are few tutors, and unfortunately fewer reasonable playable cards in a given strategy, 100 card decks are impossible. 50 card decks allow for better well put together strategies. With 50 cards you really have to think about every slot. It concentrates your deck design and makes the deck construction more challenging and even fringe strategies find that they have just enough cards to play and do their gimmick without sacrificing the core of what makes them interesting. Fewer cards per deck also helps add variety to the decklists which don't automatically add every imaginable staple and instead choose cards that better suit their strategies.
As a bonus, if you like mill, 50 card decks also make this a real plausible winning strategy with commanders like Manic Scribe and Hedron Crab being both fun and playable strategies.
A concern that I should hear more, but I don't is that 100 card decks don't actually add anything to the format. There is nothing you can accomplish with 100 cards that you can't with 50. No strategy is plausible because of a larger deck.
Another consideration is that many (not all) sleeve packs are sold in packs of 80. Ultra pros with a design on the back, and KMC sleeves among others fall into this category. This means that if you prefer these brands you either have to buy 2 or switch to Dragonshields.
Less importantly, 100 card decks are also physically unwieldy and incredibly obnoxious to shuffle.
Really Long Games
Common only decks tend to be grindy, and a 40 life total also helps to delay the game. Lowering the life total from 40 to 25 has helped sped up games some.
Commander Damage
With a lower starting life total, commander damage is not really needed. To my understanding, commander was only added to help voltron decks shine, but with this change they don't need help any more. Players already have to keep track of many things, removing commander damage removes some of the tedium.
Banned Cards:
Why would a card be banned?
The main reason I would ban a card is because it creates an unfun gameplay experience for exactly one player, or because it shuts down the entire table single handedly.
Relic of Progenitus - Relic of Progenitus is banned because it is an incredible piece of graveyard hate that completely and repeatedly shut down many graveyard-based strategies.
Soul's Attendant - Soul's Attendant is banned because lifegain strategies are incredibly powerful at common, and having access to potentially 3 of these sisters can be back breaking. It is really turns games of commander into archenemy.
Sample Decklists (numbers in the front refer to converted mana cost for spells and quantity for lands)
Mono White Tokens (also allows for Cloudgoat Ranger as commander)
4 Goldnight Commander
Creatures/Spells creating creatures - 23
1 Doomed Traveler
1 Thraben Inspector
1 Cliffside Lookout
2 Standard Bearer
2 Raise the Alarm
2 Gather the Townsfolk
2 Gold Myr
2 Veteran Armorer
2 Suture Priest
3 Court Street Denizen
3 Dauntless Cathar
3 Attended Knight
3 Icatian Crier
3 Dawnglare Invoker
3 Rousing of Souls
4 Kor Cartographer
4 Inspiring Captain
4 Battle Screech
4 Captain’s Call
4 Cenn’s Enlistment
5 Loxodon Partisan
6 Triplicate Spirits
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
1 Gaze of Justice
2 Expose Evil
2 Surge of Thoughtweft
2 Judge Unworthy
3 Fortify
3 Sheer Drop
3 Guardian’s Pledge
3 Blinding Beam
Lands - 19
1 Drifting Meadow
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Sandstone Bridge
1 Sejiri Steppe
15 Plains
Mill!
2 Manic Scribe
Creatures - 12
1 Drowner Initiate
2 Information Dealer
2 Merfolk Mesmerist
2 Shriekgeist
2 Ink Dissolver
3 Drift of Phantasms
3 Selhoff Occultist
3 Aether Adept
3 Man-o’-War
4 Elgaud Shieldmate
4 Vedalken Entrancer
5 Mnemonic Wall
2 Jace's Erasure
3 Rhystic Study
3 Curse of the Bloody Tome
3 Claustrophobia
Instants - 8
1 Turn Aside
2 Peel From Reality
2 Arcane Denial
2 Muddle the Mixture
3 Exclude
3 Repulse
3 Ghostly Flicker
4 Countermand
Sorceries - 2
1 Preordain
2 Mind Sculpt
1 Ghoulcaller's Bell
1 Expedition Map
2 Armillary Sphere
2 Mind Stone
3 Moonglove Extract
Lands - 19
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Halimar Depths
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Skyline Cascade
13 Islands
Cool Combos:
Ink Dissolver + Information Dealer + a wizard at the top of your library
5 Color Voltron (also allows Transguild Courier as the commander)
5 Fusion Elemental
Creatures - 12
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Qasali Pridemage
3 Aura Gnarlid
3 Heliod's Pilgrim
3 Auramancer
3 Scuttlemutt
3 Fertilid
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Dragonsoul Knight
5 Totem-Guide Hartebeest
5 Mulldrifter
1 Messenger's Speed
1 Clout of the Dominus
2 Fist of Ironwood
2 Favor of the Overbeing
3 Shield of the Oversoul
3 Steel of the Godhead
3 Arrest
5 Runes of the Deus
Instant - 5
1 Cloudshift
2 Disenchant
2 Evolution Charm
2 Swell of Growth
4 Return to the Earth
Sorceries - 3
2 Disturbed Burial
2 Rabid Bite
3 Cultivate
1 Adventuring Gear
Lands - 20
1 Command Tower
1 Holdout Settlement
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Warped Landscape
1 Fertile Thicket
4 Plains
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
7 Forest
Goblin Burn
3 Guttersnipe
Creatures - 15
1 Goblin Bushwhacker
1 Skirk Prospector
2 Goblin Lookout
2 Mogg War Marshal
2 Sparksmith
2 Stingscourger
3 Goblin Matron
3 Mudbutton Torchrunner
3 Goblin Replica
3 Goblin General
3 Flamewave Invoker
3 Hissing Iguana
4 Beetleback Chief
4 Caterwauling Boggart
4 Goblin Heelcutter
2 Impact Tremors
3 Raid Bombardment
Instant - 2
2 Dangerous Wager
3 Staggershock
Sorcery - 11
1 Kuldotha Rebirth
1 Goblin Grenade
1 Flame Jab
1 Firebolt
1 Faithless Looting
2 Wild Guess
2 Dragon Fodder
2 Krenko’s Command
4 Empty the Warrens
4 Aftershock
2 Mind Stone
2 Darksteel Pendant
Lands - 18
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Great Furnace
1 Smoldering Spire
1 Teetering Peaks
1 Looming Spires
1 Forgotten Caves
10 Mountain
Dredge
3 Nyx Weaver
Creatures - 19
1 Elves of Deep Shadow
2 Pit Keeper
2 Undertaker
2 Festercreep
3 Golgari Brownscale
3 Shambling Shell
3 Tilling Treefolk
3 Krosan Restorer
3 Stinkweed Imp
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Fertilid
4 Sluiceway Scorpion
4 Undergrowth Scavenger
4 Wickerbough Elder
5 Battlefield Scrounger
6 Pathbreaker Wurm
6 Hooting Mandrills
7 Krosan Tusker
7 Gurmag Angler
1 Ghastly Demise
2 Grisly Salvage
Sorcery - 4
2 Chainer's Edict
2 Morgue Theft
3 Crippling Fatigue
4 Syphon Mind
Enchantments - 4
1 Rancor
1 Tortured Existence
2 Night Soil
3 Moldervine Cloak
Artifact - 2
2 Golgari Signet
3 Golgari Cluestone
1 Mortuary Mire
1 Fertile Thicket
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Golgari Rot Farm
7 Swamp
7 Forest
Exort Drain
2 Vizkopa Guildamge
Creatures - 15
1 Soul's Attendant
1 Soul Warden
1 Children of Korlis
1 Martyr of Sands
2 Angelic Wall
2 Wall of Glare
2 Suture Priest
2 Basilica Screecher
2 Tithe Drinker
2 Syndic of Tithes
3 Basilica Guards
3 Kingpin's Pet
3 Phyrexian Rager
3 Servant of Tymaret
3 Scholar of Athreos
4 Faith's Fetters
Instant - 8
2 Doom Blade
2 Rest for the Weary
2 Reprisal
2 Aura Blast
3 Crypt Incursion
3 Unmake
4 Congregate
5 Meditation Puzzle
Sorcery - 5
1 Benediction of Moons
2 Night's Whisper
3 Solemn Offering
4 Divine Congregation
4 Blood Tithe
2 Orzhov Signet
3 Orzhov Cluestone
Lands - 19
1 Orzhov Basilica
1 Scoured Barrens
10 Plains
7 Swamps
Stealy Swing
5 Akroan Conscriptor
Creatures - 9
1 Akroan Crusader
2 Iron Myr
2 Aetherflame Wall
3 Orcish Bloodpainter
3 Hissing Iguana
3 Sisters of the Flame
4 Rukh Egg
5 Emrakul's Hatcher
5 Theropod
1 Crown of Flames
2 Betrothed of Fire
2 Ghitu Firebreathing
3 Galvanic Arc
Instant - 10
1 Brute Force
1 Crowd’s Favor
1 Collateral Damage
2 Fiery Conclusion
2 Spawning Breath
2 Fling
2 Brood Birthing
2 Smash to Smithreens
4 Artillerize
1 Seething Anger
1 Reckless Abandon
Artifact - 4
2 Mind Stone
2 Darksteel Pendant
3 Ashnod's Altar
3 Pristine Talisman
Lands
19 x Snow-Covered Mountain
Big Mana, Big Spells
1 Orcish Lumberjack
2 Generator Servant
2 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Whisperer of the Wilds
3 Fierce Empath
3 Yavimaya Elder
3 Valakut Invoker
4 Wildheart Invoker
4 Krosan Drover
4 Sakura-Tribe Springcaller
5 Kozilek's Channeler
6 Elvish Aberration
6 Pathbreaker Wurm
6 Ruination Wurm
7 Krosan Tusker
8 Walker of the Grove
8 Ulamog's Crusher
1 Utopia Sprawl
2 Dragon Breath
2 Dragon Fangs
Instant - 5
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Ranger's Guile
3 Pulse of Murasa
3 Branching Bolt
1 Molder
Sorcery - 6
2 Hull Breach
3 Cultivate
3 Gift of the Gargantuan
1 Fireball
1 Kaervek's Torch
2 Rolling Thunder
2 Darksteel Pendant
Lands - 19
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Rugged Highlands
1 Gruul Turf
8 Mountain
8 Forest
Land Stomp (lands in my hands, lands in my pants)
5 Embodiment of Insight
Creatures - 14
1 Arbor Elf
1 Quirion Ranger
1 Sakura-Tribe Scout
1 Skyshroud Ranger
2 Llanowar Druid
2 Walking Atlas
3 Battlewand Oak
3 Wood Elves
3 Yayimaya Elder
3 Grazing Gladehart
4 Bull Elephant
4 Wickerbough Elder
5 Sporemound
5 Stampeding Elk Herd
2 Gaea's Touch
2 Khalni Heart Expedition
2 Lignify
Instant - 4
2 Swell of Growth - Play
2 Clip Wings
3 Pulse of Murasa
3 Harrow
Sorcery - 8
2 Explore - Play
2 Nature's Lore
3 Nissa's Pilgrimage
3 Gift of the Gargantuan
3 Cultivate
3 Primal Growth
3 Journey of Discovery
4 Skyshroud Claim
1 Adventuring Gear
Lands - 20
1 Warped Landscape
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
17 Forest
09/25/2016 - EDH05ISB Update
Hello,
After thinking about it a long time, I have decided to ban Soul’s Attendant from edh05isb.
Decks that have a large amount of life gain via extort or other means are extremely powerful. This is due to the fact that they can build a large cushion of life easily while damaging every opponent. The soul sisters can be extremely overpowering in this regard since you literally don’t have to do anything and easily heal over 5 life a turn. When combined with Cliffhaven Vampire in particular, it’s devastating. The game quickly becomes archenemy.
Without immediate spot removal, most deck begin to lose a large amount of life very quickly, as creatures are the primary victory conditions for most decks.
Taking one soul sister away is just a way of hurting the consistency of the deck while maintaining the core idea. With two soul sisters in the deck, there is 27% chance of drawing one of them in your opening hand. With one there is only 16%.
Soul Warden and Essence Warden are still legal.
Thank you for time.
Sincerely,
-elfy
There are couple more cool bloodthirst creatures you can try like Gorehorn Minotaurs and Ghor-Clan Savage. I would also maybe thrown in a Wastes so you can more easily activate Maw of Kosilek.